Open post to IDNet

[sobranie]

I have been a loyal member of IDNet since Mar2006.
I greatly appreciate the backup IDNet supplies when things go wrong BUT I do not appreciate not being able to contact support in the late evenings or weekends.
I pay £45.00 monthly for my FTTC link and am suitably impressed with the speeds but I do consider the amount charged to be way over the odds taking other ISP's of good character into account.
This is what I require in future .......
(a) 24/7 support for all members and not some feeble minded script jockies IDNet employ over the weekends who just tell us to ring IDNet on Monday. My next door neighbours parrot could do better. IDNet would probably argue that this would cost money, well maties, you screw enough out of members to support an extra few bods surely!
(b) A fairer financial deal for all members, you know where I'm coming from on this having monitored Zen for instance.
(c) IDNet, I'm tied in to your contract for a further 9 months (missed the small print there). If you don't like what I've posted here you may issue me a free MAC and I shall peacefully ride off into the sunset but I would rather stay if you come up with some satisfactory solutions.

Rick

[Simon_idnet]

Hi Rick

Our support number is indeed manned 24/7 whereas most other ISPs divert you to voicemail outside of office hours. Our 24/7 team have access to our systems and tools so they can look-up your login details etc and can check to see if there is a BT outage that might be affecting your service. However, if you need specialist support then you will need to contact our 2nd-line specialists who operate during the extended hours of 8am to 6.30pm Mon-Thu and 8am-6pm on Friday.
If you are comparing us to Zen then do bear in mind that with their Fibre prices you have to take their Line Rental too, for which they charge £17 per month whereas our price is just £10 per month. Even if you add in the Anytime Minutes (at £6.50) and then compare against our prices (you have to add VAT to Zen's website prices) you will see that our "Fibre Pro" is cheaper than their "Fibre 2". Although the Zen product is unlimited our Fibre Pro includes 100GB per month which, in my house, is enough for two teenagers who stream YouTube and Netflix incessantly. Even if that is not enough then our Fibre Pro Plus doubles the allowance for just£3 more than Zen. As you know, we are constantly reassessing our package line-up and refresh the range fairly frequently.
You can have a MAC code if you wish but if you do migrate then BT will charge us for the remainder of your 12 month initial minimum term and so we would have to pass that charge on to you. The 12 month term applies to all ISPs and yet many of them increase it to 18 or even 24 months.

Regards
Simon

[Gary]

I stayed with IDNet when I went with fibre as after all the issues I had this last year I wanted good support if I had any more problems. IDNet day time support was brilliant. I agree the night time bods are a bit flaky. As to the  packages, IDNet have been good to me as an ISP, but £35 for 100GB seems steep as other ISP's lower prices, although I am aware Zen are much bigger though so can buy in more bandwidth, but I don't understand why FTTC costs £10 a month more when IDNet have less control over the line than they did on ADSL unless BT charge a mint for FTTC bandwidth. If allowances were increased, or prices dropped to the old ADSL prices I would feel more comfortable. I know we pay for IDNets network so therefore less contention, and its fast day and night, but is it £10 a month faster... Its a hard one, small ISP trying to get buy, and people wanting to download more and more with fast fibre speeds.

[Simon_idnet]

FTTC is dearer than ADSL because all those cabinets full of equipment are very expensive. For most prople the speed increase is an order of magnitude faster. And given that each cabinet services only a very few houses then the cost of fibre broadband is actually astonishingly good value for money.

[Gary]

FTTC is dearer than ADSL because all those cabinets full of equipment are very expensive. For most prople the speed increase is an order of magnitude faster. And given that each cabinet services only a very few houses then the cost of fibre broadband is actually astonishingly good value for money.

Its up to BT what size cabinet they put in. The ECI and Huawei 128's obviously give 128 lines per cab. BT seem to go for caution in villages and not put the bigger cabs in. In our village there are 7 128 cabs I think, and that's just for the village not out lying areas so so maybe 10-15 cabs total. Since BT buy the cabs in bulk im sure they are cheaper that we probably think. Although I will say that all the road works etc costs a lot I'm sure. Are BT passing FTTC installation fees back to ISP's though though expensive bandwidth. I ask because there is such a variation in FTTC packages now with different companies, or is it just down to how much you can buy in bulk to make it cheaper?

[Steve]

Like most things in life the quicker you wish to go the more it will cost.

[Gary]

Like most things in life the quicker you wish to go the more it will cost.

I dont know, a shopping trolley down a hill shifts and is cheap 

[Simon_idnet]

It mostly depends on how many customers you want to cram onto the bandwidth. If we were to massively oversubscribe our bandwidth then we could charge much less. Our view is that that end of the market is already very well served. There are two ways to build a network: to hit a price point or to hit a performance target.

[Gary]

It mostly depends on how many customers you want to cram onto the bandwidth. If we were to massively oversubscribe our bandwidth then we could charge much less. Our view is that that end of the market is already very well served. There are two ways to build a network: to hit a price point or to hit a performance target.

I get that Simon, I noticed my mothers BT Infinity grinds to a halt at certain times of the day, hopefully its a fault but I'm guessing its the number of users, even fibre slows down when you cram it full. It comes down to what's the best fit in the end, bandwidth or performance. Thanks for your input Simon.

[mervl]

I still find IDNet competitive (not cheapest) with phone and FTTC broadband package. Two points I'd make:
1. even if you can get through to second line support 24/7 BT Openreach only accept line fault investigations during weekday working hours so you won't get far. And Wholesale who manage the link back from the cabs have their own monitoring systems and repair timescales; the IDNet feed gives their reports when they are supplied. So what I think you're really saying is that you want personal support to identify whether a problem is on your local network, or to save you the bother of looking things up for yourself. Nice but it's an unnecessary luxury. As as another IDNet user, I won't pay for your personal luxuries. Sorry.
2. is it possible for the usage feed to be updated to near realtime. I don't find it any hassle to monitor my connection through the router records and keep well clear of my data cap, but others perhaps don't manage so well.
3. IDNet's incoming e-mail seems a bit slow compared to others (around half an hour normally, for me). Not a problem, and as a freebie you get what you're given anyway with any ISP. There's always Google.

For most general users I think nowadays (especially with FTTC) almost any ISP "will do" - the only real nuisances are those that muck up the billing, but most of them seem to have disappeared (been swallowed up). So like your baked beans it's a matter of taste, and to buy anything to your taste costs (but not a lot). But if you've a problem line, then nowadays it may well be some of the mass market ISPs who have the more relevant experience of dealing with it because of the volume of issues they deal with. Remember that OpenReach get the same payment, and give the same level of service, whoever is your ISP. That's the law. But the idea that there's some sort of "just" price for your entitlement - well that went out with the medieval world many centuries ago, it's a market. And IDNet have their niche, and as usual it's heavily based on sentiment as with most things. None the worse for that, but in the cold light of day it's completely logical to decide the price isn't worth it, but it'd be a more boring world if we all took that view!

[Gary]

Two points I'd make:

You made 3 and 3/4 points really  Also you seemed to miss a point, its not about going over your data caps or monitoring them, its about the size of them...

[mervl]

  Maths was never my strong point. I'm probably misunderstanding (again) but I've always understood that IDNet's USP is the absence of contention/throttling so you get their best service (subject to the all the infrastructure constraints we know about). The caps are necessary in their business model to achieve this without costs spiralling out of control. Everything is governed by "the costs". Well, in the real world. And companies are different, no less than people, which usually means you can't "just do" what someone else does, though it never stopped us trying! (And it's boring). I do wonder where most users stand on caps, those with issues are very vociferous but that's not necessarily the same as numerous.

Sure ask them to change their business model if it doesn't suit you. I just think it's easier for Mohammed to move to the mountain, rather than Mohammed trying to move the mountain. There are plenty of ISPs with "no caps" and a bit of contention/throttling, which doesn't matter for most of us anyway. (And oops I've upset the PC brigade again, haven't I?).

[Simon]

Personally, 100Gb is perfectly adequate for me, as my monthly average download is about 15-16Gb, rarely going above 20Gb.  Has to be said, that's just on ADSL, but even if I had fibre, I can't really see my usage changing all that much, as I don't use the internet to watch TV and films.

[Bill]

Personally, 100Gb is perfectly adequate for me

The old 150GB fibre allowance was always plenty for me... it was the 30GB in peak hours that I was foreseeing difficulty with!

The change to 100GB with no hours restriction suits me fine, I seldom use much more than about 40GB. The only time I've had to watch the limit was during a catch-up exercise on iTunes when they moved about 200GB worth of my stuff to the cloud without telling me- I just spread it over a few months, not a problem.

What I really could do with is something that would cause (the occasional) connection problems to occur on Monday mornings instead of Friday evenings

[Simon]

That would involve changing the law of Sod, Bill. 

[Bill]

So very true

[Simon_idnet]

2. is it possible for the usage feed to be updated to near realtime. I don't find it any hassle to monitor my connection through the router records and keep well clear of my data cap, but others perhaps don't manage so well.

Martin has been testing an update to the RSS feed which he has now made live. This should show you usge today so far.

[Bill]

This should show you usge today so far.

It's just showed my usage up to 15:03 today (not much, quiet day today), how often does it update?

[Steve]

It's just showed my usage up to 15:03 today (not much, quiet day today), how often does it update?

I use FF to get my feeds that's always good for an update

[Simon_idnet]

For most general users I think nowadays (especially with FTTC) almost any ISP "will do". But if you've a problem line, then nowadays it may well be some of the mass market ISPs who have the more relevant experience of dealing with it because of the volume of issues they deal with.

You are only focussing on the shortest, smallest piece of the jigsaw that is the journey that your packets take through the Internet. Openreach are only managing the length that is from your home to the nearest street cabinet. We get to have some influence over the next leg, the connection from the Exchange to our network and, from then on, we can really influence performance - the delivery on your traffic through the global Internet. This is why we are members not only of LINX and LONAP in London but also AMSIX in Amsterdam and (the biggest Internet Exchange in the world) DECIX in Frankfurt. At these Exchanges we peer with over 600 other networks in order to ensure that your traffic reaches its destination by traversing as few other networks as possible. We put a lot of effort into setting-up and maintaining these peering agreements because it really helps to speed the flow of traffic and also to give us redundant routes so that we can bypass problems as and when they occur. To put this in context BT only peer in the UK and only with a very small, select number of the largest US carriers and European incumbent Telcos.

[andrue]

Like most things in life the quicker you wish to go the more it will cost.

Not always the case if the lady charges by the hour 

[Simon]

That's a fascinating insight, Simon.  Thanks. 

[Bill]

Yes, thanks Simon(_idnet).

I was about to say that that should be on the main site, but thought I'd better check first... and found that it is

[Bill]

how often does it update?

If my RSS client is to be believed, it gives the days usage up to about hh:05 and is available at about hh:40.

I like it!

[mervl]

You are only focussing on the shortest, smallest piece of the jigsaw that is the journey that your packets take through the Internet. Openreach are only managing the length that is from your home to the nearest street cabinet.

I agree Simon and understand that. What's always troubled me a bit though is that if the local loop is poor does it effectively "wipe out" the benefit of the international peering network, rather as the road network is constrained by its bottlenecks? In my case the latency to the Cab is over 12ms, which was nearly double the latency from the Cab to US sites, for instance! The other personal issue is really whether my use really requires the top-notch international network (not one for you I appreciate)! But I never notice any lag on my connection - everything seems instantaneous, the only slow bit is my software and hardware. Over the couple of years I've been with IDNet the only "problems" I seem to be aware of though is the Wholesale hardware connections to your network which seemed to be a bit flaky for a time earlier this year, though that might now have been sorted, hopefully. (I'm a bit spoiled though since my historic secondary (fixed wireless) connection now uses the Hurricane Electric(?) international network - which seems to give even yours a run for its money? - and that's all I have to compare).

[pctech]

If your copper loop isn't great it will have a detrimental effect on your speed and latency if heavy error correction is required.

What Simon is referring to is that they want to ensure that as much as possible your packets take the most direct route to their destination as although ISP/carrier routers are very quick and can process billions of packets a second, this processing can introduce latency so the goal is to keep it 'on the wire' or fibre as much as possible hence why premium ISPs like IDNet invest so much in their networks.

[Simon_idnet]

That's right. It's no help if you run a speed test that shows that your local connection to the cabinet/Exchange is healthy and yet when you try to visit a site on the Internet it is dog slow, as Gary was describing with his Mum's Infinity connection. What really sets ISPs apart is the quality and performance of their network beyond the local loop. That's why we enjoy selling leased-lines so much - the quality is sufficient to get the most out of the bandwidth available as it's not shared with hoards of residential video streams.

[kinmel]

After having Zen, IdNet and AAisp as providers, I moved to Sky for fibre. Whichever ISP provided broadband, provided line and calls too.

Sky works differently ( I didn't believe it either at first ).

Support is 24/7 with a specialist fibre team who have an excellent relationship with Openreach.  After your initial call to support, all further calls are intercepted simply from your phone number and you jump any queue and you go directly to the agent(s) dealing with your issue. When you connect, they have your history in front of them and you do not need to go all over it again.

My problem was a new fibre install that dropped from 27Mb to 9Mb on day three. Within 2 hours an Openreach engineer was on-site. Every time he decided the line was now operating "normally" circa 18Mb and he closed the fault, Sky sent him back without any intervention from me.  Two full working days later I was back at 27Mb.  I know two people who have had the same experience and on no occasion was it suggested that the calls would require a payment if no fault was found. Their view seems to be that the drop is in it self evidence of a fault.

Of course as a Sky subscriber my internet connection is used for catch-up, boxed sets and all other sorts of other high usage downloads too, but that bothers me not at all. I have no idea what I use each month because there is absolutely no cap, or throttling.  Every test on TTB and Speedtest.net show the download speeds matches the line stats and my real downloads show it too.

At £20 per month plus line and calls costs means it is not the cheapest, but any premium paid above that is definitely money wasted.

[colirv]

That's one point of view. Mine is that no money kept out of Murdoch's hands money wasted!

[Bill]

That's one point of view. Mine is that no money kept out of Murdoch's hands money wasted!

I'll go along with that

[pctech]

Not many ISPs are media giants with their own news arm.

Can you imagine what might happen if BTOR annoyed Sky in any way, the amount of negative publicity would be unthinkable, I suspect BT's various tentacles also provide a lot of other services to Sky both here and overseas so it would be a big account to lose.

[Tacitus]

Martin has been testing an update to the RSS feed which he has now made live. This should show you usge today so far.

I've been getting it for the past few days and so far it's working very well.  You do have to remember to check it though........   

[Bill]

You do have to remember to check it though........   

Depends what you mean by "remember to check"... as I said elsewhere my RSS client just gets all my feeds without any effort on my part.

I can even check my usage if I'm not connected to the internet at the time. I'd be most reluctant to manage without a stand-alone RSS client.

[Gary]

I added it to Mr Reader on my iPad via feedly, that captures a few rss feeds I like that I cant be bothered with on the Mac, since I don't use it that much these days.

[Bill]

I added it to Mr Reader on my iPad via feedly

Not having an iPad that doesn't mean much to me, but I'm glad it's working for you again